Why I am not at the Grand Canyon right now

Right now I should be enjoying astounding views of the greatest natural wonder my country has to offer. I should be standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon with my jaw on the ground, seeing what James Fisher described in Wild America with these words:

The world ended; began again eight miles away. Between the ends of the world was a chasm.

The chasm was awful.

Awe. Time brings awe to the traveler less often, no doubt, as time goes on; for time gives him, too, the accumulated, stored, recorded, experiece of those who have been before him. With all of these I had prepared myself – words, music, paintings, photographs, three-dimensional color movies, even. Yet all of these were, at that first moment of shock, reduced to a whisper, whispering, ‘Yes, this is true; this is real; this is it; this is the greatest abyss on the face of the earth; this is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.’ The loud voice (I have never heard it louder) was the overwhelming voice of awe…never had my awful friend, awe, stood so long at my elbow, so close, as by the rim of the Grand Canyon. Never will it come so close again.

That was our plan, Daisy and I, that our little family would, with Daisy’s family, make our way from southern California to northern Arizona to see one of the most incredible sights in the world. After all, seeing the Grand Canyon is something I have never done, and something I have always wanted to do. Daisy’s entire family, except for her, have had the quintessential American experience of seeing the awful chasm and they wanted us to experience it. Mid-month we were researching hotels and routes and I had started digging into the possible birds we could see. Then, suddenly, it hit us. We can’t go to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is in Arizona. We are boycotting Arizona.

Back in April, when the odious and ignorant governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, signed Senate Bill 1070, a misguided piece of immigration legislation, into law Daisy and I said we would not go to Arizona until the law was overturned by the courts or repealed by the state. Why? When a state-level law causes the President of the United States to step in and say that the law threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe” it is pretty clear that something is wrong. When a law is passed that requires people to carry identity documents and for police to question and detain anyone who they think might be in the country without documentation it is obvious that basic freedoms are at stake. The fact that the law was passed in an environment of xenophobia and hysteria about immigration made clear that the law would be used as a cudgel against the brown, the foreign, the “other.” We could not in good conscience support a state that passed such a disgusting and racist law by spending our tourism dollars there.

Of course, it was easy to say we would boycott Arizona when we had no plans to go there. After all, it is not as if we would miss going to a place we weren’t going to anyway. From April until December the thought of a trip to Arizona never crossed our minds. Then Daisy’s sister suggested the Grand Canyon as a fun destination while we were visiting her in southern California and the wheels in our heads started turning and I recalled descriptions like James Fisher’s, and, well, started to get excited about seeing the canyon. After all, what could be better than seeing an icon of America for the first time with our one-year-old son?

So it is with sadness that we decided to instead travel elsewhere and spend our dollars supporting the economy of people who wouldn’t decide to search, detain, and deport people who look different, act different, speak different. After all, you don’t have to go that far back in my family tree to find those who came from Germany, Holland, Czechoslovakia, and other countries. And Daisy’s entire family is immigrants who came here from Korea by way of Brazil. Should they be forced to show papers at the whim of a power-hungry cop? Should I? Should anyone? I want to experience an American treasure from a place where I can feel proud to be an American. Arizona, sadly, is not that place right now (and it is, amazingly, getting worse, with an attack on birthright citizenship being led by the racist state senator Russell Pearce).

I hope that someday, hopefully someday soon, the people of Arizona will realize that they have created a second awful chasm, a deep and terrible rift, between themselves and the ideals upon which this great country was built. I hope that they do everything they can to fix that rift and welcome with open arms those who are in the United States seeking a better life for their families. And I hope that when that day comes I am still young enough to make the journey to the rim of the Grand Canyon, guided by my immigrant family and my son, a descendant of immigrants, and see the only awful chasm left in Arizona.

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Until then, enjoy Gogol Bordello!

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For more information about the boycott of Arizona and other immigration issues related to the state please visit the following sites:

Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy, their son, Desmond Shearwater, and their indoor cat, B.B. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.

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22 Comments

From the South

December 30, 2010 5:57:01 pm

Liked reading your blog till you just had to bring up imagration and politics.I wont go into what Im for or against but since you had to let your readers know where you stand I’ll tell you that I will not be reading your blog anymore.

I’d just like to say that there are still a LOT of Arizonans who think this law is the worst possible thing that could have happened our state, myself included. Sadly, we rational, ethical human beings who refuse to blame the Mexican immigrants for our own shortcomings are outnumbered by the sensationalist, fear-mongering people who actually supported that civil rights nightmare. Our governor is a poorly educated, uninformed, and racist woman who clearly has little grasp on how the world works. She’s dragging our already bedraggled state down when many of us didn’t think things could get any worse.

I have a sibling who works at the Grand Canyon and I would never discourage anyone from visiting it because it truly is one of the magnificent wonders of the world. I was born in Arizona and have lived in this state for 2/3 of my life. I love this state for it’s culture, it’s nature, it’s beauty, and all of the other wonderful traits that make AZ great. But I am ashamed of my state, the people who have been elected to represent us, and the people who put those hateful people into office. Honestly, I don’t blame you for refusing to come here. But don’t blame all Arizonans! There are still plenty of good, rational people in this state who are trying to make things better. Hopefully we’ll succeed.

I usually go on two birding vacations each year. I to have scratched Arizona off my list for the reasons you mentioned. You may lose a few readers like “From the South” but the fact is this is an appalling law and it will eventually be overturned in the courts. But until then, my tourist dollars are going elsewhere.

What is wrong with requiring people to carry documentation with them? Just about everyone except illegals has driver’s licenses anyway. I thought the law was changed soon after it was passed to remove many of its problems but maybe I am wrong. Shouldn’t we consider all the ecological damage the illegals cause in the National Wildlife Refuges along the Arizona-Mexico border as well? I think illegal immigration is a much more complex issue than it is often portrayed by both sides. While discriminating against all immigrants is obviously wrong, just letting everybody in isn’t the answer either.

I think the occasional foray into politics is par for the course, and the natural extension of caring about birds, the places where they live and the places where we go to see them.

This is such a difficult subject, because of AZ’s legit place on the short list of the USA’s birding meccas and beyond the awful SB 1070, there’s also the issue that current US immigration policy forces immigrants to cross over wilderness, including some pretty important habitat, instead of through the cities where they can be regulated and their impact on the surrounding country is minimized. Not to mention the offensive concrete slab barrier that claims to keep people out, but only forces them through the back-country.

So even leaving aside the humanitarian issues, birds are in a world of hurt because of the current federal and state policy’s environmental impact byproduct. I can’t say what I’d do, because I’ve been holding it in my mind to go back there and there are obvious bird-centered industries that want and deserve our business. But this political attitude is pretty terrible, and I can’t fault anyone for taking a more draconian view on it that I might.

Irrespective of your view of Arizona’s politics, I question the wisdom of a boycott. As with most things of this sort (economic sanctions against nations, etc.) it seems like it hurts the little guy first and most. In this case a lot of those “little guys” might be the very immigrants that suffer a loss of civil liberties at the hands of this law. Many of them work in unskilled jobs maintaining lodging, serving food, and countless other jobs that are supported by tourism. Sure Ms. brewer won’t get your sales tax, but neither will a lot of innocent folks get paychecks.

You also have to wonder, as mentioned above, how it could impact conservation. If the state starts feeling some serious economic hurt, the pipeline of cash to environmental causes will be among the first things to dry up.

Nothing is ever as black and white as it may seem, nor as it would be convenient for it to be. That goes for misguided laws, the wreckage from which fruitful action often springs, as well as boycotts which are often more emotional and myopic than wise. If I want to see birds in Arizona, I’ll go to Arizona and spend my money at restaurants, campgrounds, motels, and other establishments that are run by and operated by decent, hard-working Arizonans. How do I know the guy that owns the motel isn’t a Brewer supporter? I don’t. But if we’re going to be that righteous, it’s best to never leave the house.

This isn’t an indictment of your choice, Corey. On the contrary I quite admire your conviction in the face of temptation. I just like to paint a little gray into every argument – because that’s how I see the world. Probably why I like gulls so much…

Just want to throw a couple quick thoughts out there in response to some of the comments here…

To those who are concerned that a boycott will hurt the wrong people: In November, Arizona re-elected Brewer with a pretty big margin and gave the republicans more control over the legislature. These are not the actions of a population looking to change things. Also, there are many Arizonans calling for the boycott (including organizations that I linked to). South Africa is perhaps the finest example of the power of a boycott. And it was clear that it was a small minority that had the power there and that the boycott hurt the large minority temporarily until the boycott was successful. But people boycotted anyway (and were supported in this by the ANC and other freedom fighters) and it was the right thing to do.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on this post but I hope that people will be a bit more willing to hear an opinion different from their own than “From the South.”

Finally, James, these are people we are talking about, fellow human beings, not “illegals.” And making people carry ID is so absurdly unAmerican and anti-freedom that I can’t even fathom supporting it. Requiring police to question and detain those they think might be undocumented immigrants is a disaster when it comes to actual law enforcement, because no one who is undocumented is going to report crimes committed against them or that they witnessed if it means deportation will be the result of their contact with law enforcement.

Principled stands are almost always painful, which is why there are not more of them. Hopefully you are just as active in calling for the real solution to this problem which is to go after the people who provide the jobs and jail them.

Most important you stood by what you believe, made your daddy proud and stole Wayne’s thunder all in one swell foop. Not a bad day’s work.

Sympathies to all involved in the terrible Tucson shootings yesterday. Given the subject of this almost prescient post an update you might want to check out is the following YouTube video where the Sherriff of Tucson, Clarence Dupnik, says that Arizona “has become the capitol, the mecca for prejudice and bigotry”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwhOE32ijkc#t=01m30s. Amazing – and sad – stuff.